JOLLY HARBOUR, WHERE ARE THE TRAWLERS

1830 hours, March 8, 2015, Jolly Harbour Antigua: We sat down at a Greek restaurant at the end of our dock in the Jolly Harbour Marina complex, for dinner and to watch the sun set.  Their roasted lamb was great. 

Jolly Harbour was designed with a Marina complex to serve recreational boaters less than 100 ft  as the center piece, and with waterfront attached town houses and single family homes as the primary income generator for the developer. In support of both the marina users and the planned residential community the complex includes several restaurants and dock front bars, a large grocery store, two bank branch offices, and two car rental companies. All are located adjacent to the Marina. For boaters there is an adjacent boat yard with a large travel lift, and a Budget Marine Store. In addition the complex included a casino which was in a large building at the edge of the Docks but is now vacant. The town houses were built a number of years ago, and many are in need of refurbishment. Most of the single family home sites have never been built on. From a boater's standpoint, all of the support facilities, including Customs and Immigration, are in the complex and easily accessible. 

When we arrived the Marina was filled with sailboats, many from Canada. With the exception of two fishing type power boats less than 40 ft. we were the only power boat in the marina. In going through Customs we ran into a couple with a Kadey Krogen who had been in the Caribbean for four years traveling between Trindad where they summered just below the hurricane zone, and Puerto Rico. On their first year in the Caribbean they had asked the same question we had, "Where are all the trawlers?".  They had noted as we had, the advertising and the articles in the boating magazines about trawlers traveling the world. The next said "I hope you like sailboat folks, if you don't you won't have any friends."  We had run into a couple with a 47 ft. Defever in St. Martin, who had also been in the Caribbean for four years, and they had the same comments. 

While touring the the Harbor the day after our arrival,we saw Slowdown on a mooring, but Ed and Cheryl were not aboard. Ed and Cheryl stopped by our boat in their dingy latter that day and we had a chance to catch up at dinner, including stories about their 11 hour passage from St. Kitts where we had last seen them. We had a great pizza at an Italian restaurant on the water next door to the Customs building in the Harbor. 

                                         Only power cruiser in Jolly Harbour

                                                  Kadey Krogen one of the less than 10 Trawlers we've seen